Your letter and accounts are doubtless at S. F., and will reach me
in course. My wife is no great shakes; she is the one who has
suffered most. My mother has had a Huge Old Time; Lloyd is first
chop; I so well that I do not know myself - sea-bathing, if you
please, and what is far more dangerous, entertaining and being
entertained by His Majesty here, who is a very fine intelligent
fellow, but O, Charles! what a crop for the drink! He carries it,
too, like a mountain with a sparrow on its shoulders. We
calculated five bottles of champagne in three hours and a half
(afternoon), and the sovereign quite presentable, although
perceptibly more dignified at the end. . . .
The extraordinary health I enjoy and variety of interests I find
among these islands would tempt me to remain here; only for Lloyd,
who is not well placed in such countries for a permanency; and a
little for Colvin, to whom I feel I owe a sort of filial duty. And
these two considerations will no doubt bring me back - to go to bed
again - in England. - Yours ever affectionately,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO R. A. M. STEVENSON
HONOLULU, HAWAIIAN ISLANDS, FEBRUARY 1889.
MY DEAR BOB, - My extremely foolhardy venture is practically over.
How foolhardy it was I don't think I realised. We had a very small
schooner, and, like most yachts, over-rigged and over-sparred, and
like many American yachts on a very dangerous sail plan. The
waters we sailed in are, of course, entirely unlighted, and very
badly charted; in the Dangerous Archipelago, through which we were
fools enough to go, we were perfectly in ignorance of where we were
for a whole night and half the next day, and this in the midst of
invisible islands and rapid and variable currents; and we were
lucky when we found our whereabouts at last. We have twice had all
we wanted in the way of squalls: once, as I came on deck, I found
the green sea over the cockpit coamings and running down the
companion like a brook to meet me; at that same moment the foresail
sheet jammed and the captain had no knife; this was the only
occasion on the cruise that ever I set a hand to a rope, but I
worked like a Trojan, judging the possibility of haemorrhage better
than the certainty of drowning. Another time I saw a rather
singular thing: our whole ship's company as pale as paper from the
captain to the cook; we had a black squall astern on the port side
and a white squall ahead to starboard; the complication passed off
innocuous, the black squall only fetching us with its tail, and the
white one slewing off somewhere else. Twice we were a long while
(days) in the close vicinity of hurricane weather, but again luck
prevailed, and we saw none of it. These are dangers incident to
these seas and small craft. What was an amazement, and at the same
time a powerful stroke of luck, both our masts were rotten, and we
found it out - I was going to say in time, but it was stranger and
luckier than that. The head of the mainmast hung over so that
hands were afraid to go to the helm; and less than three weeks
before - I am not sure it was more than a fortnight - we had been
nearly twelve hours beating off the lee shore of Eimeo (or Moorea,
next island to Tahiti) in half a gale of wind with a violent head
sea: she would neither tack nor wear once, and had to be boxed off
with the mainsail - you can imagine what an ungodly show of kites
we carried - and yet the mast stood. The very day after that, in
the southern bight of Tahiti, we had a near squeak, the wind
suddenly coming calm; the reefs were close in with, my eye! what a
surf! The pilot thought we were gone, and the captain had a boat
cleared, when a lucky squall came to our rescue. My wife, hearing
the order given about the boats, remarked to my mother, 'Isn't that
nice? We shall soon be ashore!' Thus does the female mind
unconsciously skirt along the verge of eternity. Our voyage up
here was most disastrous - calms, squalls, head sea, waterspouts of
rain, hurricane weather all about, and we in the midst of the
hurricane season, when even the hopeful builder and owner of the
yacht had pronounced these seas unfit for her. We ran out of food,
and were quite given up for lost in Honolulu: people had ceased to
speak to Belle about the CASCO, as a deadly subject.
But the perils of the deep were part of the programme; and though I
am very glad to be done with them for a while and comfortably
ashore, where a squall does not matter a snuff to any one, I feel
pretty sure I shall want to get to sea again ere long. The
dreadful risk I took was financial, and double-headed. First, I
had to sink a lot of money in the cruise, and if I didn't get
health, how was I to get it back? I have got health to a wonderful
extent; and as I have the most interesting matter for my book, bar
accidents, I ought to get all I have laid out and a profit. But,
second (what I own I never considered till too late), there was the
danger of collisions, of damages and heavy repairs, of disablement,
towing, and salvage; indeed, the cruise might have turned round and
cost me double. Nor will this danger be quite over till I hear the
yacht is in San Francisco; for though I have shaken the dust of her
deck from my feet, I fear (as a point of law) she is still mine
till she gets there.
From my point of view, up to now the cruise has been a wonderful
success. I never knew the world was so amusing. On the last
voyage we had grown so used to sea-life that no one wearied, though
it lasted a full month, except Fanny, who is always ill. All the
time our visits to the islands have been more like dreams than
realities: the people, the life, the beachcombers, the old stories
and songs I have picked up, so interesting; the climate, the
scenery, and (in some places) the women, so beautiful. The women
are handsomest in Tahiti, the men in the Marquesas; both as fine
types as can be imagined. Lloyd reminds me, I have not told you
one characteristic incident of the cruise from a semi-naval point
of view. One night we were going ashore in Anaho Bay; the most
awful noise on deck; the breakers distinctly audible in the cabin;
and there I had to sit below, entertaining in my best style a
negroid native chieftain, much the worse for rum! You can imagine
the evening's pleasure.
This naval report on cruising in the South Seas would be incomplete
without one other trait. On our voyage up here I came one day into
the dining-room, the hatch in the floor was open, the ship's boy
was below with a baler, and two of the hands were carrying buckets
as for a fire; this meant that the pumps had ceased working.
One stirring day was that in which we sighted Hawaii. It blew
fair, but very strong; we carried jib, foresail, and mainsail, all
single-reefed, and she carried her lee rail under water and flew.
The swell, the heaviest I have ever been out in - I tried in vain
to estimate the height, AT LEAST fifteen feet - came tearing after
us about a point and a half off the wind. We had the best hand -
old Louis - at the wheel; and, really, he did nobly, and had noble
luck, for it never caught us once. At times it seemed we must have
it; Louis would look over his shoulder with the queerest look and
dive down his neck into his shoulders; and then it missed us
somehow, and only sprays came over our quarter, turning the little
outside lane of deck into a mill race as deep as to the cockpit
coamings. I never remember anything more delightful and exciting.
Pretty soon after we were lying absolutely becalmed under the lee
of Hawaii, of which we had been warned; and the captain never
confessed he had done it on purpose, but when accused, he smiled.
Really, I suppose he did quite right, for we stood committed to a
dangerous race, and to bring her to the wind would have been rather
a heart-sickening manoeuvre.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MARCEL SCHWOB
HONOLULU, SANDWICH ISLANDS, FEBRUARY 8TH, 1889.
DEAR SIR, - I thank you - from the midst of such a flurry as you
can imagine, with seven months' accumulated correspondence on my
table - for your two friendly and clever letters. Pray write me
again. I shall be home in May or June, and not improbably shall
come to Paris in the summer. Then we can talk; or in the interval
I may be able to write, which is to-day out of the question. Pray
take a word from a man of crushing occupations, and count it as a
volume. Your little CONTE is delightful. Ah yes, you are right, I
love the eighteenth century; and so do you, and have not listened
to its voice in vain. - The Hunted One,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO CHARLES BAXTER
HONOLULU, 8TH MARCH 1889.
MY DEAR CHARLES, - At last I have the accounts: the Doer has done
excellently, and in the words of -, 'I reciprocate every step of
your behaviour.' . . I send a letter for Bob in your care, as I
don't know his Liverpool address, by which (for he is to show you
part of it) you will see we have got out of this adventure - or
hope to have - with wonderful fortune. I have the retrospective
horrors on me when I think of the liabilities I incurred; but,
thank God, I think I'm in port again, and I have found one climate
in which I can enjoy life. Even Honolulu is too cold for me; but
the south isles were a heaven upon earth to a puir, catarrhal party
like Johns'one. We think, as Tahiti is too complete a banishment,
to try Madeira. It's only a week from England, good
communications, and I suspect in climate and scenery not unlike our
dear islands; in people, alas! there can be no comparison. But
friends could go, and I could come in summer, so I should not be
quite cut off.
Lloyd and I have finished a story, THE WRONG BOX. If it is not
funny, I am sure I do not know what is. I have split over writing
it. Since I have been here, I have been toiling like a galley
slave: three numbers of THE MASTER to rewrite, five chapters of
the WRONG BOX to write and rewrite, and about five hundred lines of
a narrative poem to write, rewrite, and re-rewrite. Now I have THE
MASTER waiting me for its continuation, two numbers more; when
that's done, I shall breathe. This spasm of activity has been
chequered with champagne parties: Happy and Glorious, Hawaii Ponoi
paua: kou moi - (Native Hawaiians, dote upon your monarch!)
Hawaiian God save the King. (In addition to my other labours, I am
learning the language with a native moonshee.) Kalakaua is a
terrible companion; a bottle of fizz is like a glass of sherry to
him, he thinks nothing of five or six in an afternoon as a whet for
dinner. You should see a photograph of our party after an
afternoon with H. H. M.: my! what a crew! - Yours ever
affectionately,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO HENRY JAMES
HONOLULU [MARCH 1889].
MY DEAR JAMES, - Yes - I own up - I am untrue to friendship and
(what is less, but still considerable) to civilisation. I am not
coming home for another year. There it is, cold and bald, and now
you won't believe in me at all, and serve me right (says you) and
the devil take me. But look here, and judge me tenderly. I have
had more fun and pleasure of my life these past months than ever
before, and more health than any time in ten long years. And even
here in Honolulu I have withered in the cold; and this precious
deep is filled with islands, which we may still visit; and though
the sea is a deathful place, I like to be there, and like squalls
(when they are over); and to draw near to a new island, I cannot
say how much I like. In short, I take another year of this sort of
life, and mean to try to work down among the poisoned arrows, and
mean (if it may be) to come back again when the thing is through,
and converse with Henry James as heretofore; and in the meanwhile
issue directions to H. J. to write to me once more. Let him
address here at Honolulu, for my views are vague; and if it is sent
here it will follow and find me, if I am to be found; and if I am
not to be found the man James will have done his duty, and we shall
be at the bottom of the sea, where no post-office clerk can be
expected to discover us, or languishing on a coral island, the
philosophic drudges of some barbarian potentate: perchance, of an
American Missionary. My wife has just sent to Mrs. Sitwell a
translation (TANT BIEN QUE MAL) of a letter I have had from my
chief friend in this part of the world: go and see her, and get a
hearing of it; it will do you good; it is a better method of
correspondence 'than even Henry James's. I jest, but seriously it
is a strange thing for a tough, sick, middle-aged scrivener like R.
L. S. to receive a letter so conceived from a man fifty years old,
a leading politician, a crack orator, and the great wit of his
village: boldly say, 'the highly popular M.P. of Tautira.' My
nineteenth century strikes here, and lies alongside of something
beautiful and ancient. I think the receipt of such a letter might
humble, shall I say even -? and for me, I would rather have
received it than written REDGAUNTLET or the SIXTH AENEID. All
told, if my books have enabled or helped me to make this voyage, to
know Rui, and to have received such a letter, they have (in the old
prefatorial expression) not been writ in vain. It would seem from
this that I have been not so much humbled as puffed up; but, I
assure you, I have in fact been both. A little of what that letter
says is my own earning; not all, but yet a little; and the little
makes me proud, and all the rest ashamed; and in the contrast, how
much more beautiful altogether is the ancient man than him of to-
day!
Well, well, Henry James is pretty good, though he IS of the
nineteenth century, and that glaringly. And to curry favour with
him, I wish I could be more explicit; but, indeed, I am still of
necessity extremely vague, and cannot tell what I am to do, nor
where I am to go for some while yet. As soon as I am sure, you
shall hear. All are fairly well - the wife, your countrywoman,
least of all; troubles are not entirely wanting; but on the whole
we prosper, and we are all affectionately yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
HONOLULU, APRIL 2ND, 1889.
MY DEAR COLVIN, - I am beginning to be ashamed of writing on to you
without the least acknowledgment, like a tramp; but I do not care -
I am hardened; and whatever be the cause of your silence, I mean to
write till all is blue. I am outright ashamed of my news, which is
that we are not coming home for another year. I cannot but hope it
may continue the vast improvement of my health: I think it good
for Fanny and Lloyd; and we have all a taste for this wandering and
dangerous life. My mother I send home, to my relief, as this part
of our cruise will be (if we can carry it out) rather difficult in
places. Here is the idea: about the middle of June (unless the
Boston Board objects) we sail from Honolulu in the missionary ship
(barquentine auxiliary steamer) MORNING STAR: she takes us through
the Gilberts and Marshalls, and drops us (this is my great idea) on
Ponape, one of the volcanic islands of the Carolines. Here we stay
marooned among a doubtful population, with a Spanish vice-governor
and five native kings, and a sprinkling of missionaries all at
loggerheads, on the chance of fetching a passage to Sydney in a
trader, a labour ship, or (maybe, but this appears too bright) a
ship of war. If we can't get the MORNING STAR (and the Board has
many reasons that I can see for refusing its permission) I mean to
try to fetch Fiji, hire a schooner there, do the Fijis and
Friendlies, hit the course of the RICHMOND at Tonga Tabu, make back
by Tahiti, and so to S. F., and home: perhaps in June 1890. For
the latter part of the cruise will likely be the same in either
case. You can see for yourself how much variety and adventure this
promises, and that it is not devoid of danger at the best; but if
we can pull it off in safety, gives me a fine book of travel, and
Lloyd a fine lecture and diorama, which should vastly better our
finances.
I feel as if I were untrue to friendship; believe me, Colvin, when
I look forward to this absence of another year, my conscience sinks
at thought of the Monument; but I think you will pardon me if you
consider how much this tropical weather mends my health. Remember
me as I was at home, and think of me sea-bathing and walking about,
as jolly as a sandboy: you will own the temptation is strong; and
as the scheme, bar fatal accidents, is bound to pay into the
bargain, sooner or later, it seems it would be madness to come home
now, with an imperfect book, no illustrations to speak of, no
diorama, and perhaps fall sick again by autumn. I do not think I
delude myself when I say the tendency to catarrh has visibly
diminished.
It is a singular tiring that as I was packing up old papers ere I
left Skerryvore, I came on the prophecies of a drunken Highland
sibyl, when I was seventeen. She said I was to be very happy, to
visit America, and TO BE MUCH UPON THE SEA. It seems as if it were
coming true with a vengeance. Also, do you remember my strong,
old, rooted belief that I shall die by drowning? I don't want that
to come true, though it is an easy death; but it occurs to me
oddly, with these long chances in front. I cannot say why I like
the sea; no man is more cynically and constantly alive to its
perils; I regard it as the highest form of gambling; and yet I love
the sea as much as I hate gambling. Fine, clean emotions; a world
all and always beautiful; air better than wine; interest
unflagging; there is upon the whole no better life. - Yours ever,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO E. L. BURLINGAME
[HONOLULU, APRIL 1889.]
MY DEAR BURLINGAME, - This is to announce the most prodigious
change of programme. I have seen so much of the South Seas that I
desire to see more, and I get so much health here that I dread a
return to our vile climates. I have applied accordingly to the
missionary folk to let me go round in the MORNING STAR; and if the
Boston Board should refuse, I shall get somehow to Fiji, hire a
trading schooner, and see the Fijis and Friendlies and Samoa. He
would be a South Seayer, Mr. Burlingame. Of course, if I go in the
MORNING STAR, I see all the eastern (or western?) islands.
Before I sail, I shall make out to let you have the last of THE
MASTER: though I tell you it sticks! - and I hope to have had some
proofs forbye, of the verses anyway. And now to business.
I want (if you can find them) in the British sixpenny edition, if
not, in some equally compact and portable shape - Seaside Library,
for instance - the Waverley Novels entire, or as entire as you can
get 'em, and the following of Marryat: PHANTOM SHIP, PETER SIMPLE,
PERCIVAL KEENE, PRIVATEERSMAN, CHILDREN OF THE NEW FOREST, FRANK
MILDMAY, NEWTON FORSTER, DOG FIEND (SNARLEYYOW). Also MIDSHIPMAN
EASY, KINGSBURN, Carlyle's FRENCH REVOLUTION, Motley's DUTCH
REPUBLIC, Lang's LETTERS ON LITERATURE, a complete set of my works,
JENKIN, in duplicate; also FAMILIAR STUDIES, ditto.
I have to thank you for the accounts, which are satisfactory
indeed, and for the cheque for $1000. Another account will have
come and gone before I see you. I hope it will be equally roseate
in colour. I am quite worked out, and this cursed end of THE
MASTER hangs over me like the arm of the gallows; but it is always
darkest before dawn, and no doubt the clouds will soon rise; but it
is a difficult thing to write, above all in Mackellarese; and I
cannot yet see my way clear. If I pull this off, THE MASTER will
be a pretty good novel or I am the more deceived; and even if I
don't pull it off, it'll still have some stuff in it.
We shall remain here until the middle of June anyway; but my mother
leaves for Europe early in May. Hence our mail should continue to
come here; but not hers. I will let you know my next address,
which will probably be Sydney. If we get on the MORNING STAR, I
propose at present to get marooned on Ponape, and take my chance of
getting a passage to Australia. It will leave times and seasons
mighty vague, and the cruise is risky; but I shall know something
of the South Seas when it is done, or else the South Seas will
contain all there is of me. It should give me a fine book of
travels, anyway.
Low will probably come and ask some dollars of you. Pray let him
have them, they are for outfit. O, another complete set of my
books should go to Captain A. H. Otis, care of Dr. Merritt, Yacht
CASCO, Oakland, Cal. In haste,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
HONOLULU, APRIL 6TH, 1889.
MY DEAR MISS BOODLE, - Nobody writes a better letter than my
Gamekeeper: so gay, so pleasant, so engagingly particular,
answering (by some delicate instinct) all the questions she
suggests. It is a shame you should get such a poor return as I can
make, from a mind essentially and originally incapable of the art
epistolary. I would let the paper-cutter take my place; but I am
sorry to say the little wooden seaman did after the manner of
seamen, and deserted in the Societies. The place he seems to have
stayed at - seems, for his absence was not observed till we were
near the Equator - was Tautira, and, I assure you, he displayed
good taste, Tautira being as 'nigh hand heaven' as a paper-cutter
or anybody has a right to expect.
I think all our friends will be very angry with us, and I give the
grounds of their probable displeasure bluntly - we are not coming
home for another year. My mother returns next month. Fanny,
Lloyd, and I push on again among the islands on a trading schooner,
the EQUATOR - first for the Gilbert group, which we shall have an
opportunity to explore thoroughly; then, if occasion serve, to the
Marshalls and Carolines; and if occasion (or money) fail, to Samoa,
and back to Tahiti. I own we are deserters, but we have excuses.
You cannot conceive how these climates agree with the wretched
house-plant of Skerryvore: he wonders to find himself sea-bathing,
and cutting about the world loose, like a grown-up person. They
agree with Fanny too, who does not suffer from her rheumatism, and
with Lloyd also. And the interest of the islands is endless; and
the sea, though I own it is a fearsome place, is very delightful.
We had applied for places in the American missionary ship, the
MORNING STAR, but this trading schooner is a far preferable idea,
giving us more time and a thousandfold more liberty; so we
determined to cut off the missionaries with a shilling.
The Sandwich Islands do not interest us very much; we live here,
oppressed with civilisation, and look for good things in the
future. But it would surprise you if you came out to-night from
Honolulu (all shining with electric lights, and all in a bustle
from the arrival of the mail, which is to carry you these lines)
and crossed the long wooden causeway along the beach, and came out
on the road through Kapiolani park, and seeing a gate in the
palings, with a tub of gold-fish by the wayside, entered casually
in. The buildings stand in three groups by the edge of the beach,
where an angry little spitfire sea continually spirts and thrashes
with impotent irascibility, the big seas breaking further out upon
the reef. The first is a small house, with a very large summer
parlour, or LANAI, as they call it here, roofed, but practically
open. There you will find the lamps burning and the family sitting
about the table, dinner just done: my mother, my wife, Lloyd,
Belle, my wife's daughter, Austin her child, and to-night (by way
of rarity) a guest. All about the walls our South Sea curiosities,
war clubs, idols, pearl shells, stone axes, etc.; and the walls are
only a small part of a lanai, the rest being glazed or latticed
windows, or mere open space. You will see there no sign of the
Squire, however; and being a person of a humane disposition, you
will only glance in over the balcony railing at the merry-makers in
the summer parlour, and proceed further afield after the Exile.
You look round, there is beautiful green turf, many trees of an
outlandish sort that drop thorns - look out if your feet are bare;
but I beg your pardon, you have not been long enough in the South
Seas - and many oleanders in full flower. The next group of
buildings is ramshackle, and quite dark; you make out a coach-house
door, and look in - only some cocoanuts; you try round to the left
and come to the sea front, where Venus and the moon are making
luminous tracks on the water, and a great swell rolls and shines on
the outer reef; and here is another door - all these places open
from the outside - and you go in, and find photography, tubs of
water, negatives steeping, a tap, and a chair and an inkbottle,
where my wife is supposed to write; round a little further, a third
door, entering which you find a picture upon the easel and a table
sticky with paints; a fourth door admits you to a sort of court,
where there is a hen sitting - I believe on a fallacious egg. No
sign of the Squire in all this. But right opposite the studio door
you have observed a third little house, from whose open door
lamplight streams and makes hay of the strong moonlight shadows.
You had supposed it made no part of the grounds, for a fence runs
round it lined with oleander; but as the Squire is nowhere else, is
it not just possible he may be here? It is a grim little wooden
shanty; cobwebs bedeck it; friendly mice inhabit its recesses; the
mailed cockroach walks upon the wall; so also, I regret to say, the
scorpion. Herein are two pallet beds, two mosquito curtains,
strung to the pitch-boards of the roof, two tables laden with books
and manuscripts, three chairs, and, in one of the beds, the Squire
busy writing to yourself, as it chances, and just at this moment
somewhat bitten by mosquitoes. He has just set fire to the insect
powder, and will be all right in no time; but just now he
contemplates large white blisters, and would like to scratch them,
but knows better. The house is not bare; it has been inhabited by
Kanakas, and - you know what children are! - the bare wood walls
are pasted over with pages from the GRAPHIC, HARPER'S WEEKLY, etc.
The floor is matted, and I am bound to say the matting is filthy.
There are two windows and two doors, one of which is condemned; on
the panels of that last a sheet of paper is pinned up, and covered
with writing. I cull a few plums:-
'A duck-hammock for each person.
A patent organ like the commandant's at Taiohae.
Cheap and bad cigars for presents.
Revolvers.
Permanganate of potass.
Liniment for the head and sulphur.
Fine tooth-comb.'
What do you think this is? Simply life in the South Seas
foreshortened. These are a few of our desiderata for the next
trip, which we jot down as they occur.
There, I have really done my best and tried to send something like
a letter - one letter in return for all your dozens. Pray remember
us all to yourself, Mrs. Boodle, and the rest of your house. I do
hope your mother will be better when this comes. I shall write and
give you a new address when I have made up my mind as to the most
probable, and I do beg you will continue to write from time to time
and give us airs from home. To-morrow - think of it - I must be
off by a quarter to eight to drive in to the palace and breakfast
with his Hawaiian Majesty at 8.30: I shall be dead indeed. Please
give my news to Scott, I trust he is better; give him my warm
regards. To you we all send all kinds of things, and I am the
absentee Squire,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO CHARLES BAXTER
HONOLULU, APRIL 1889.
MY DEAR CHARLES, - As usual, your letter is as good as a cordial,
and I thank you for it, and all your care, kindness, and generous
and thoughtful friendship, from my heart. I was truly glad to hear
a word of Colvin, whose long silence has terrified me; and glad to
hear that you condoned the notion of my staying longer in the South
Seas, for I have decided in that sense. The first idea was to go
in the MORNING STAR, missionary ship; but now I have found a
trading schooner, the EQUATOR, which is to call for me here early
in June and carry us through the Gilberts. What will happen then,
the Lord knows. My mother does not accompany us: she leaves here
for home early in May, and you will hear of us from her; but not, I
imagine, anything more definite. We shall get dumped on
Butaritari, and whether we manage to go on to the Marshalls and
Carolines, or whether we fall back on Samoa, Heaven must decide;
but I mean to fetch back into the course of the RICHMOND - (to
think you don't know what the RICHMOND is! - the steamer of the
Eastern South Seas, joining New Zealand, Tongatabu, the Samoas,
Taheite, and Rarotonga, and carrying by last advices sheep in the
saloon!) - into the course of the RICHMOND and make Taheite again
on the home track. Would I like to see the SCOTS OBSERVER?
Wouldn't I not? But whaur? I'm direckit at space. They have nae
post offishes at the Gilberts, and as for the Car'lines! Ye see,
Mr. Baxter, we're no just in the punkshewal CENTRE o' civ'lisation.
But pile them up for me, and when I've decided on an address, I'll
let you ken, and ye'll can send them stavin' after me. - Ever your
affectionate,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO CHARLES BAXTER
HONOLULU, 10TH MAY 1889.
MY DEAR CHARLES, - I am appalled to gather from your last just to
hand that you have felt so much concern about the letter. Pray
dismiss it from your mind. But I think you scarce appreciate how
disagreeable it is to have your private affairs and private
unguarded expressions getting into print. It would soon sicken any
one of writing letters. I have no doubt that letter was very
wisely selected, but it just shows how things crop up. There was a
raging jealousy between the two yachts; our captain was nearly in a
fight over it. However, no more; and whatever you think, my dear
fellow, do not suppose me angry with you or -; although I was
ANNOYED AT THE CIRCUMSTANCE - a very different thing. But it is
difficult to conduct life by letter, and I continually feel I may
be drifting into some matter of offence, in which my heart takes no
part.
I must now turn to a point of business. This new cruise of ours is
somewhat venturesome; and I think it needful to warn you not to be
in a hurry to suppose us dead. In these ill-charted seas, it is
quite on the cards we might be cast on some unvisited, or very
rarely visited, island; that there we might lie for a long time,
even years, unheard of; and yet turn up smiling at the hinder end.
So do not let me be 'rowpit' till you get some certainty we have
gone to Davie Jones in a squall, or graced the feast of some
barbarian in the character of Long Pig.
I have just been a week away alone on the lee coast of Hawaii, the
only white creature in many miles, riding five and a half hours one
day, living with a native, seeing four lepers shipped off to
Molokai, hearing native causes, and giving my opinion as AMICUS
CURIAE as to the interpretation of a statute in English; a lovely
week among God's best - at least God's sweetest works -
Polynesians. It has bettered me greatly. If I could only stay
there the time that remains, I could get my work done and be happy;
but the care of my family keeps me in vile Honolulu, where I am
always out of sorts, amidst heat and cold and cesspools and beastly
HAOLES. What is a haole? You are one; and so, I am sorry to say,
am I. After so long a dose of whites, it was a blessing to get
among Polynesians again even for a week.
Well, Charles, there are waur haoles than yoursel', I'll say that
for ye; and trust before I sail I shall get another letter with
more about yourself. - Ever your affectionate friend
R. L. S.
Letter: TO W. H. LOW
HONOLULU, (ABOUT) 20TH MAY '89.
MY DEAR LOW, - The goods have come; many daughters have done
virtuously, but thou excellest them all. - I have at length
finished THE MASTER; it has been a sore cross to me; but now he is
buried, his body's under hatches, - his soul, if there is any hell
to go to, gone to hell; and I forgive him: it is harder to forgive
Burlingame for having induced me to begin the publication, or
myself for suffering the induction. - Yes, I think Hole has done
finely; it will be one of the most adequately illustrated books of
our generation; he gets the note, he tells the story - MY story: I
know only one failure - the Master standing on the beach. - You
must have a letter for me at Sydney - till further notice.
Remember me to Mrs. Will. H., the godlike sculptor, and any of the
faithful. If you want to cease to be a republican, see my little
Kaiulani, as she goes through - but she is gone already. You will
die a red, I wear the colours of that little royal maiden, NOUS
ALLONS CHANTER A LA RONDE, SI VOUS VOULEZ! only she is not blonde
by several chalks, though she is but a half-blood, and the wrong
half Edinburgh Scots like mysel'. But, O Low, I love the
Polynesian: this civilisation of ours is a dingy, ungentlemanly
business; it drops out too much of man, and too much of that the
very beauty of the poor beast: who has his beauties in spite of
Zola and Co. As usual, here is a whole letter with no news: I am
a bloodless, inhuman dog; and no doubt Zola is a better
correspondent. - Long live your fine old English admiral - yours, I
mean - the U.S.A. one at Samoa; I wept tears and loved myself and
mankind when I read of him: he is not too much civilised. And
there was Gordon, too; and there are others, beyond question. But
if you could live, the only white folk, in a Polynesian village;
and drink that warm, light VIN DU PAYS of human affection, and
enjoy that simple dignity of all about you - I will not gush, for I
am now in my fortieth year, which seems highly unjust, but there it
is, Mr. Low, and the Lord enlighten your affectionate
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MRS. R. L. STEVENSON
KALAWAO, MOLOKAI [MAY 1889].
DEAR FANNY, - I had a lovely sail up. Captain Cameron and Mr.
Gilfillan, both born in the States, yet the first still with a
strong Highland, and the second still with a strong Lowland accent,
were good company; the night was warm, the victuals plain but good.
Mr. Gilfillan gave me his berth, and I slept well, though I heard
the sisters sick in the next stateroom, poor souls. Heavy rolling
woke me in the morning; I turned in all standing, so went right on
the upper deck. The day was on the peep out of a low morning bank,
and we were wallowing along under stupendous cliffs. As the lights
brightened, we could see certain abutments and buttresses on their
front where wood clustered and grass grew brightly. But the whole
brow seemed quite impassable, and my heart sank at the sight. Two
thousand feet of rock making 19 degrees (the Captain guesses)
seemed quite beyond my powers. However, I had come so far; and, to
tell you the truth, I was so cowed with fear and disgust that I
dared not go back on the adventure in the interests of my own self-
respect. Presently we came up with the leper promontory: lowland,
quite bare and bleak and harsh, a little town of wooden houses, two
churches, a landing-stair, all unsightly, sour, northerly, lying
athwart the sunrise, with the great wall of the pali cutting the
world out on the south. Our lepers were sent on the first boat,
about a dozen, one poor child very horrid, one white man, leaving a
large grown family behind him in Honolulu, and then into the second
stepped the sisters and myself. I do not know how it would have
been with me had the sisters not been there. My horror of the
horrible is about my weakest point; but the moral loveliness at my
elbow blotted all else out; and when I found that one of them was
crying, poor soul, quietly under her veil, I cried a little myself;
then I felt as right as a trivet, only a little crushed to be there
so uselessly. I thought it was a sin and a shame she should feel
unhappy; I turned round to her, and said something like this:
'Ladies, God Himself is here to give you welcome. I'm sure it is
good for me to be beside you; I hope it will be blessed to me; I
thank you for myself and the good you do me.' It seemed to cheer
her up; but indeed I had scarce said it when we were at the
landing-stairs, and there was a great crowd, hundreds of (God save
us!) pantomime masks in poor human flesh, waiting to receive the
sisters and the new patients.
Every hand was offered: I had gloves, but I had made up my mind on
the boat's voyage NOT to give my hand; that seemed less offensive
than the gloves. So the sisters and I went up among that crew, and
presently I got aside (for I felt I had no business there) and set
off on foot across the promontory, carrying my wrap and the camera.
All horror was quite gone from me: to see these dread creatures
smile and look happy was beautiful. On my way through Kalaupapa I
was exchanging cheerful ALOHAS with the patients coming galloping
over on their horses; I was stopping to gossip at house-doors; I
was happy, only ashamed of myself that I was here for no good. One
woman was pretty, and spoke good English, and was infinitely
engaging and (in the old phrase) towardly; she thought I was the
new white patient; and when she found I was only a visitor, a
curious change came in her face and voice - the only sad thing,
morally sad, I mean - that I met that morning. But for all that,
they tell me none want to leave. Beyond Kalaupapa the houses
became rare; dry stone dykes, grassy, stony land, one sick
pandanus; a dreary country; from overhead in the little clinging
wood shogs of the pali chirruping of birds fell; the low sun was
right in my face; the trade blew pure and cool and delicious; I
felt as right as ninepence, and stopped and chatted with the
patients whom I still met on their horses, with not the least
disgust. About half-way over, I met the superintendent (a leper)
with a horse for me, and O, wasn't I glad! But the horse was one
of those curious, dogged, cranky brutes that always dully want to
go somewhere else, and my traffic with him completed my crushing
fatigue. I got to the guest-house, an empty house with several
rooms, kitchen, bath, etc. There was no one there, and I let the
horse go loose in the garden, lay down on the bed, and fell asleep.
Dr. Swift woke me and gave me breakfast, then I came back and slept
again while he was at the dispensary, and he woke me for dinner;
and I came back and slept again, and he woke me about six for
supper; and then in about an hour I felt tired again, and came up
to my solitary guest-house, played the flageolet, and am now
writing to you. As yet, you see, I have seen nothing of the
settlement, and my crushing fatigue (though I believe that was
moral and a measure of my cowardice) and the doctor's opinion make
me think the pali hopeless. 'You don't look a strong man,' said
the doctor; 'but are you sound?' I told him the truth; then he
said it was out of the question, and if I were to get up at all, I
must be carried up. But, as it seems, men as well as horses
continually fall on this ascent: the doctor goes up with a change
of clothes - it is plain that to be carried would in itself be very
fatiguing to both mind and body; and I should then be at the
beginning of thirteen miles of mountain road to be ridden against
time. How should I come through? I hope you will think me right
in my decision: I mean to stay, and shall not be back in Honolulu
till Saturday, June first. You must all do the best you can to
make ready.
Dr. Swift has a wife and an infant son, beginning to toddle and
run, and they live here as composed as brick and mortar - at least
the wife does, a Kentucky German, a fine enough creature, I
believe, who was quite amazed at the sisters shedding tears! How
strange is mankind! Gilfillan too, a good fellow I think, and far
from a stupid, kept up his hard Lowland Scottish talk in the boat
while the sister was covering her face; but I believe he knew, and
did it (partly) in embarrassment, and part perhaps in mistaken
kindness. And that was one reason, too, why I made my speech to
them. Partly, too, I did it, because I was ashamed to do so, and
remembered one of my golden rules, 'When you are ashamed to speak,
speak up at once.' But, mind you, that rule is only golden with
strangers; with your own folks, there are other considerations.
This is a strange place to be in. A bell has been sounded at
intervals while I wrote, now all is still but a musical humming of
the sea, not unlike the sound of telegraph wires; the night is
quite cool and pitch dark, with a small fine rain; one light over
in the leper settlement, one cricket whistling in the garden, my
lamp here by my bedside, and my pen cheeping between my inky
fingers.
Next day, lovely morning, slept all night, 80 degrees in the shade,
strong, sweet Anaho trade-wind.
LOUIS.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
HONOLULU, JUNE 1889.
MY DEAR COLVIN, - I am just home after twelve days journey to
Molokai, seven of them at the leper settlement, where I can only
say that the sight of so much courage, cheerfulness, and devotion
strung me too high to mind the infinite pity and horror of the
sights. I used to ride over from Kalawao to Kalaupapa (about three
miles across the promontory, the cliff-wall, ivied with forest and
yet inaccessible from steepness, on my left), go to the Sisters'
home, which is a miracle of neatness, play a game of croquet with
seven leper girls (90 degrees in the shade), got a little old-maid
meal served me by the Sisters, and ride home again, tired enough,
but not too tired. The girls have all dolls, and love dressing
them. You who know so many ladies delicately clad, and they who
know so many dressmakers, please make it known it would be an
acceptable gift to send scraps for doll dressmaking to the Reverend
Sister Maryanne, Bishop Home, Kalaupapa, Molokai, Hawaiian Islands.
I have seen sights that cannot be told, and heard stories that
cannot be repeated: yet I never admired my poor race so much, nor
(strange as it may seem) loved life more than in the settlement. A
horror of moral beauty broods over the place: that's like bad
Victor Hugo, but it is the only way I can express the sense that
lived with me all these days. And this even though it was in great
part Catholic, and my sympathies flew never with so much difficulty
as towards Catholic virtues. The pass-book kept with heaven stirs
me to anger and laughter. One of the sisters calls the place 'the
ticket office to heaven.' Well, what is the odds? They do their
darg and do it with kindness and efficiency incredible; and we must
take folk's virtues as we find them, and love the better part. Of
old Damien, whose weaknesses and worse perhaps I heard fully, I
think only the more. It was a European peasant: dirty, bigoted,
untruthful, unwise, tricky, but superb with generosity, residual
candour and fundamental good-humour: convince him he had done
wrong (it might take hours of insult) and he would undo what he had
done and like his corrector better. A man, with all the grime and
paltriness of mankind, but a saint and hero all the more for that.
The place as regards scenery is grand, gloomy, and bleak. Mighty
mountain walls descending sheer along the whole face of the island
into a sea unusually deep; the front of the mountain ivied and
furred with clinging forest, one viridescent cliff: about half-way
from east to west, the low, bare, stony promontory edged in between
the cliff and the ocean; the two little towns (Kalawao and
Kalaupapa) seated on either side of it, as bare almost as bathing
machines upon a beach; and the population - gorgons and chimaeras
dire. All this tear of the nerves I bore admirably; and the day
after I got away, rode twenty miles along the opposite coast and up
into the mountains: they call it twenty, I am doubtful of the
figures: I should guess it nearer twelve; but let me take credit
for what residents allege; and I was riding again the day after, so
I need say no more about health. Honolulu does not agree with me
at all: I am always out of sorts there, with slight headache,
blood to the head, etc. I had a good deal of work to do and did it
with miserable difficulty; and yet all the time I have been gaining
strength, as you see, which is highly encouraging. By the time I
am done with this cruise I shall have the material for a very
singular book of travels: names of strange stories and characters,
cannibals, pirates, ancient legends, old Polynesian poetry, - never
was so generous a farrago. I am going down now to get the story of
a shipwrecked family, who were fifteen months on an island with a
murderer: there is a specimen. The Pacific is a strange place;
the nineteenth century only exists there in spots: all round, it
is a no man's land of the ages, a stir-about of epochs and races,
barbarisms and civilisations, virtues and crimes.
It is good of you to let me stay longer, but if I had known how ill
you were, I should be now on my way home. I had chartered my
schooner and made all arrangements before (at last) we got definite
news. I feel highly guilty; I should be back to insult and worry
you a little. Our address till further notice is to be c/o R.
Towns and Co., Sydney. That is final: I only got the arrangement
made yesterday; but you may now publish it abroad. - Yours ever,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO JAMES PAYN
HONOLULU, H.I., JUNE 13TH, 1889.
MY DEAR JAMES PAYN, - I get sad news of you here at my offsetting
for further voyages: I wish I could say what I feel. Sure there
was never any man less deserved this calamity; for I have heard you
speak time and again, and I remember nothing that was unkind,
nothing that was untrue, nothing that was not helpful, from your
lips. It is the ill-talkers that should hear no more. God knows,
I know no word of consolation; but I do feel your trouble. You are
the more open to letters now; let me talk to you for two pages. I
have nothing but happiness to tell; and you may bless God you are a
man so sound-hearted that (even in the freshness of your calamity)
I can come to you with my own good fortune unashamed and secure of
sympathy. It is a good thing to be a good man, whether deaf or
whether dumb; and of all our fellow-craftsmen (whom yet they count
a jealous race), I never knew one but gave you the name of honesty
and kindness: come to think of it gravely, this is better than the
finest hearing. We are all on the march to deafness, blindness,
and all conceivable and fatal disabilities; we shall not all get
there with a report so good. My good news is a health
astonishingly reinstated. This climate; these voyagings; these
landfalls at dawn; new islands peaking from the morning bank; new
forested harbours; new passing alarms of squalls and surf; new
interests of gentle natives, - the whole tale of my life is better
to me than any poem.
I am fresh just now from the leper settlement of Molokai, playing
croquet with seven leper girls, sitting and yarning with old,
blind, leper beachcombers in the hospital, sickened with the
spectacle of abhorrent suffering and deformation amongst the
patients, touched to the heart by the sight of lovely and effective
virtues in their helpers: no stranger time have I ever had, nor
any so moving. I do not think it a little thing to be deaf, God
knows, and God defend me from the same! - but to be a leper, of one
of the self-condemned, how much more awful! and yet there's a way
there also. 'There are Molokais everywhere,' said Mr. Dutton,
Father Damien's dresser; you are but new landed in yours; and my
dear and kind adviser, I wish you, with all my soul, that patience
and courage which you will require. Think of me meanwhile on a
trading schooner, bound for the Gilbert Islands, thereafter for the
Marshalls, with a diet of fish and cocoanut before me; bound on a
cruise of - well, of investigation to what islands we can reach,
and to get (some day or other) to Sydney, where a letter addressed
to the care of R. Towns & Co. will find me sooner or later; and if
it contain any good news, whether of your welfare or the courage
with which you bear the contrary, will do me good. - Yours
affectionately (although so near a stranger),
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
SCHOONER 'EQUATOR,' APAIANG LAGOON, AUGUST 22ND, 1889.
MY DEAR COLVIN, - The missionary ship is outside the reef trying
(vainly) to get in; so I may have a chance to get a line off. I am
glad to say I shall be home by June next for the summer, or we
shall know the reason why. For God's sake be well and jolly for
the meeting. I shall be, I believe, a different character from
what you have seen this long while. This cruise is up to now a
huge success, being interesting, pleasant, and profitable. The
beachcomber is perhaps the most interesting character here; the
natives are very different, on the whole, from Polynesians: they
are moral, stand-offish (for good reasons), and protected by a dark
tongue. It is delightful to meet the few Hawaiians (mostly
missionaries) that are dotted about, with their Italian BRIO and
their ready friendliness. The whites are a strange lot, many of
them good, kind, pleasant fellows; others quite the lowest I have
ever seen even in the slums of cities. I wish I had time to
narrate to you the doings and character of three white murderers
(more or less proven) I have met. One, the only undoubted assassin
of the lot, quite gained my affection in his big home out of a
wreck, with his New Hebrides wife in her savage turban of hair and
yet a perfect lady, and his three adorable little girls in Rob Roy
Macgregor dresses, dancing to the hand organ, performing circus on
the floor with startling effects of nudity, and curling up together
on a mat to sleep, three sizes, three attitudes, three Rob Roy
dresses, and six little clenched fists: the murderer meanwhile
brooding and gloating over his chicks, till your whole heart went
out to him; and yet his crime on the face of it was dark:
disembowelling, in his own house, an old man of seventy, and him
drunk.
